


when the grinch went ice-skating

by wafflesofdoom



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blind Date, Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-22 19:32:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17065766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: robert didn’t like christmas. so going on a blind date to the manchester christmas market, on a friday night, a week to christmas, was hardly his idea of fun.a christmassy blind date au.





	when the grinch went ice-skating

**Author's Note:**

> written for day 23 of the robron christmas calendar.

Christmas wasn’t necessarily Robert’s favourite time of year. Maybe it had been, once upon a time, when the whole occasion still held its magic for him, back in the days where the old farmhouse would smell like freshly baked cookies, and Christmas cakes from the first weekend of December, when putting up the Christmas tree was a full day event, Christmas music humming softly in the background as the five of them huddled in the living room, Jack settled in his chair, watching on as Sarah would help them carefully drape tinsel across the scratchy pine of the tree, carefully placing the delicate glass baubles on the end of each branch. Sometimes – sometimes, the memories were so visceral, so real, Robert could practically smell the pine, feel the rough texture of the glittery tinsel under his fingers.

But that was a long time ago.

Christmas had long since lost its magic for Robert, if he was being entirely honest. Maybe it was sad to admit, but for a long time, it had felt like just another day. Then again, he preferred that it felt like just another day, rather than how it used to feel, grief blackening every inch of what used to be his favourite day of the year. The first Christmas after Sarah died, they didn’t even put up a tree. Jack hadn’t wanted to buy one, and Robert didn’t have the money to do it himself – and his father wouldn’t have appreciated it too much either, considering Robert had gotten a dressing down for just putting on some Christmas music that year, trying his best to make the day somewhat normal for a too young to understand Victoria.

Every year after that had somehow gotten tenser than that first one had been, but Jack - mostly Diane, really – had done their best to plaster over the tension with fake happiness, and Christmas cheer, but you could hardly start the Titanic from sinking once it had already hit the iceberg, could you?

Nowadays, Robert was the definition of a Grinch – Victoria said that, not him, but Robert was inclined to agree. He hadn’t bought a Christmas tree in years, and he only bought presents because it would be kind of a dick move not to give your family anything, but that was his limit.

Christmas was just a time of year to remind you of everything you’d lost, Robert decided. Everywhere you went, every advert you saw from Halloween onward was about family, and friends, and love, and Robert didn’t exactly have a lot of that, did he? He had a brother who he couldn’t be in the same room with for more than an hour, a step-mother whose opinion of Robert had been shaped by a father who hated him, a set of divorce papers in his back pocket that reminded him of the family man he couldn’t be, and a scant few friends who actually liked him.

You couldn’t blame him for being a Grinch, really.

And yet somehow, he’d been talked into going on a blind date, a week to Christmas, at a bloody Christmas market, of all place. Now, Robert was not the type of person who’d begrudge other people their Christmas themed joy – Victoria went to the Christmas market in town at least once a week, and she’d always bring him back some sort of Christmas themed sweet, or biscuit, which was nice, but he’d never been much inclined to go himself.

It was Leyla’s fault, really.

His co-worker/best friend had gotten tired of him moping around the office, and her newfound happy relationship with the ridiculously hot advertising guy from two floors below them had made her believe that she was Cupid incarnate, so she’d decided to set him up on a blind date.

Objectively, Robert knew he needed to get back out there. He’d dated since Chrissie, yes, but nothing serious, and it was creeping up on two years since Leyla had thrown him a ‘yay you’ve gotten divorced from your witchy wife’ party, so it was time for him to get back on his bike, as they say.

(As Leyla said.)

But maybe Christmas wasn’t the time, not when he hated Christmas.

Leyla hadn’t really given him a choice, if he was being entirely honest about it. She’d landed on his desk (quite literally), with a number in hand, and told him that he was going to meet his blind date, Aaron, at the Manchester Christmas Market at 6pm, on a Friday night.

Because that wasn’t utterly  ** _mental_**.

He’d agreed to go to get Leyla off his back, mostly.

Not because he wanted to.

No – he wasn’t curious.

Not even a little.

Shivering against the bitter evening cold, Robert tucked his chin into his scarf, stepping from foot to foot. It was his own fault for being so early, he supposed, but he hadn’t realised quite how cold it really was. Winter had arrived with a very sudden bang to Manchester, and the cold was biting against his cheeks, probably flushing them a very unattractive shade of red.

“Robert, right?”

Robert turned to his right, coming face to face with who he presumed was his blind date. He was – well, he was bloody gorgeous. Robert had two (mostly) working eyes, and he wasn’t stupid, this guy was gorgeous. He was a little shorter than Robert (something he wasn’t annoyed about, if he was being honest) and he had the brightest blue eyes that Robert had ever seen. The beanie jammed on his head was obscuring most of his hair from view, but there was a fringe of dark curls peeking out from underneath the navy-blue material that did wonders for Robert’s imagination.

(Put your eyes back in your head, Sugden.)

“Uh, yeah,” Robert nodded, trying to compose himself again. “Yeah, I’m Robert. You must be Aaron.”

The man – Aaron – smiled, nodding. “My mate said to look out for an obnoxious looking blonde fella,” he joked, a good-natured expression on his face.

“Leyla gave me absolutely no information about you at all,” Robert admitted, glancing around the busy market. “Was this your choice of date?”

Aaron pulled a face. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice,” he admitted. “I like the market, but it’s a bit busy, for a first date. No?”

“I was more thinking about how I don’t like Christmas,” Robert said, trying to judge Aaron’s reaction. Usually it was met with shock and horror, Leyla giving him a dramatic speech about how it was in fact the most wonderful time of the year when he’d told her that in no uncertain circumstances would he be participating in an ugly Christmas jumper day.

“That’s something Daniel should have definitely told me,” Aaron rolled his eyes. “I’m telling you, he’s out to make me look like an embarrassment these days.”

Robert laughed. “Have you known him long?”

“Dan? Years,” Aaron confirmed. “We used to work together, before he became a hotshot advertiser.”

“What do you work as?”

“Mechanic,” Aaron replied. “I’m the manager of a garage in the city, it’s not a bad number. You?”

“I work in consultancy.”

“What’s that all about then?”

“Businesses pay me a stupid amount of money to have me give them advice on how to run their businesses better,” Robert joked. “It’s not particularly exciting, but I like it – and a job’s a job, right?”

“Work to live, not the other way around, right?”

Robert of two years ago would have argued the point, but Robert of now knew better. Or at least, life had forced him to know better. “Something like that,” he hummed his agreement, the market bustling around them.

“So, seeing as you’re a Grinch,” Aaron said, a cheeky grin in place on his face. “Do you want to take this date somewhere else?”

Robert rolled his eyes. “I’m not a Grinch,” he feebly argued. “But we can stay. Seeing as you like it, you can show me what I’ve been missing out on by avoiding this place like the plague.”

Aaron didn’t look opposed to the idea, and he nodded, jerking his head, a clear signal for Robert to follow him. “Any good date starts with alcohol, right?”

Robert laughed. “Or ends with it, depending.”

“Depending on how much of a Grinch you are, you mean,” Aaron said, getting in line for one of the Christmas themed stands, fake snow stuck to the wooden roof of the little hut, Christmas music blaring from every angle, Wham! declaring to the world that last Christmas, someone broke their head.

(It doesn’t make you special, Robert snorted. Everyone’s had to nurse a broken heart at Christmas.)

“What’s so nice about Christmas, then?” Robert asked, genuinely curious.

Aaron shrugged.  “I dunno, really,” he said, the queue barely inching forward. “It’s not as if it’s the perfect holiday people make it out to be, that’s a load of Hollywood crap, if you ask me. But it’s still nice, spending time with family, the food – the drinking. It can be a laugh, I’ve got a big mad family and there’s always something mental going on when it comes to Christmas at ours. Plus – I’ve got a little sister, she’s a lot younger. It means a lot, seeing her happy, and excited.”

“That sounds nice.”

It sounded like all the things Robert didn’t have – a madcap family to spend Christmas with, good stories to tell. There was only so many times (zero, the number was zero) he could tell the story of how he’d eaten his Christmas tea in the barn, alone, one year, hiding from the wrath of his father when Jack had realised Robert had been the one to secretly destroy Andy’s new trainers.

“Why don’t you like Christmas?” Aaron inquired.

Was this the moment he talked about his dead mum? The dad who hated him?

“I’ve never really had a proper family Christmas,” Robert decided to go with a little white lie. “So, I guess I’ve never had much to like.”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron, to his credit, looked genuinely apologetic. “What is your favourite time of the year then, if it’s not Christmas?”

“Summertime,” Robert said, decisive. “I grew up in the countryside, so summer always meant being outside all the time, and swimming, and biking. I miss that sometimes, I think. Though summer means cocktails and beaches now, which I like.”

“Cocktails and beaches? In Manchester?”

Robert laughed. “I take myself on holiday to Greece every summer,” he said. “That’s my favourite time of year. A posh hotel room, a good book, and complete and utter peace for a week. No work, no annoying siblings – nada.”

“Sounds boring,” Aaron said cheekily, the two of them finally at the top of the queue. “Two mulled wines, please.”

“You didn’t strike me as a mulled wine kind of guy,” Robert admitted, murmuring a thank you as Aaron passed him one of the steaming mugs. The smell was utterly delicious, warm and Robert could see why this was such a popular tradition, now.

“You didn’t strike me as a Grinch,” Aaron clinked his mug against Robert’s, that cheeky smile still fixed in place on his face. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

..

“You’ve never been ice-skating?” Aaron looked practically offended as they passed by the ice rink, icing sugar stuck in his beard, the result of the Dutch pancake things they’d been eating. If Robert knew him better, he’d figure this was the perfect moment to kiss all that sugar away, but they were an hour into their first date – it was hardly the time.

“Why would I have ever been ice-skating? We live in Manchester, not the bloody Alps!” Robert protested, sneaking another of the sweet treats Aaron was still holding.

“Okay, we’re fixing this right now,” Aaron shook his head, tossing the last of the food in the bin, grabbing Robert by the wrist and tugging him toward the ticket stand. “Two, please – he’s paying.”

“Am I?”

“You are,” Aaron grinned, leaning against the counter. Robert – he wasn’t usually the type to get all mushy on a first date, he really wasn’t, but he was having a ludicrous amount of fun with Aaron.

Robert wasn’t really going to argue, considering the bright smile on Aaron’s face, handing over the cash to the guy behind the ticket desk, taking the glittery, garishly red pieces of paper in return. “If I end up in hospital, it’s on you,” he said, half-joking, half serious, as they joined the queue for ice-skates, the plastic shoes looking far more dangerous than they looked fun.

(He wasn’t opposed to taking a few risks for the sake of fun but paying to slosh around with blades attached to his feet – that was just insanity, really.)

“I’ll hold your hand,” Aaron grinned, passing his trainers to the guy behind the counter, padding across the room to one of the benches, already lacing his feet into the skates.

(Now – that was something Robert wasn’t opposed to.)

The hard plastic of the skates was uncomfortable against Robert’s feet as he snapped the buckles into place, feeling a little wobbly on his feet as he stood up, the cheap carpet underfoot hardly giving a good indication of what being on the actual ice was going to be like.

“You look nervous,” Aaron commented, pushing his beanie back off his forehead a bit, more curls escaping from the material.

“I’m not nervous,” Robert blustered, putting on his best confident face, following Aaron toward the ice. Aaron was cool as a breeze as he stepped onto the ice, gliding across it easily, as though he had done this a thousand times before. He made it look easy, Robert thought to himself, watching as Aaron seemed to give himself a minute or two to reacquaint himself with the ice, before he leaned against the side, giving Robert an expectant look.

“You look like you are,” Aaron repeated, a wicked glint in his eye as he teased Robert.

Determined now, Robert stepped onto the ice, his heart thundering in his chest as he slide forward on the ice, feeling wildly unstable. Why anyone did this for fun, Robert could not understand. Inching forward, Robert tried to swallow his nerves, and he moved forward, and managed about half a metre forward before he went flying, landing on his arse, nearly flinging a small child into the wall in the process.

Great. No, really – this was great. Embarrassing himself on a first date was always Robert’s idea of a good time.

“You okay?” Aaron was towering over him, offering a hand to help him up.

“I’m fine,” Robert said, struggling to his feet, the ice cold under his fingertips as he managed to help himself up, feeling like an overgrown Bambi as he managed to get himself to the side, clinging to the wall of the ice-rink for dear life.

(If you don’t count his pride.)

“I can teach you, if you’d like,” Aaron offered, skating up next to him.

“How on Earth do you know how to ice-skate properly?”

Aaron shrugged. “I did it a lot, when I lived in Paris – my boyfriend at the time used to love every kind of sport under the sun, so every Christmas, we’d go ice-skating. I guess I just kept it up when I moved back here,” he explained. “It’s fun, you can kind of forget everything and just skate about.”

“This is like the literal opposite of fun if you ask me,” Robert replied, still clinging to the wall. “This is a sport for psychopaths! You’ve got – you’ve got knives, attached to your feet.”

Aaron laughed, shaking his head. “You’re being dramatic,” he replied, offering Robert a hand. “It’s easy – you’ve just got to go with the forward motion, because if you think you’re going to fall, you will,” he continued, taking both of Robert’s hands in his own, tugging him forward.

“I think I preferred the mulled wine,” Robert admitted, reluctant to let Aaron pull him away from the wall.

“Trust me!” Aaron laughed, not looking one bit fazed as he skated backwards, slowly pulling Robert around the rink. “You’re too stiff, just bend your knees a bit,” he explained, overexaggerating his own stance, trying to encourage Robert to mimic it.

Robert decided to just go with it. What else was he supposed to do, really? He had a gorgeous man holding his hands, and he was a little fuzzy around the edges from the mulled wine, and life wasn’t all bad, even if he did have blades attached to his bloody feet.

“Like this?” Robert bent his knees slightly, the whole process already feeling a little easier.

“Mm, and you’ve just got to do it as if you’re walking – left, then right,” Aaron said, sounding encouraging. “See?  You’re doing it, it’s not all bad!”

“I’m almost as good as the little kid doing laps around me,” Robert joked, the rink full of kids who were absolutely fearless, flinging themselves around the ice as if nothing could possibly happen to them. He kind of admired it, really – he remembered what it had felt like to be that young, and reckless, jumping off rocks into the quarry, ignoring every warning he’d ever gotten from his father on the things he shouldn’t do.

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Aaron grinned, moving so he was standing next to Robert, still holding one of his hands, able to tug the two of them around the ice a little faster now he wasn’t skating backwards.

The more loops of the rink they did, the more confident Robert started to get, their conversation distracting him from the terror of you know, actually ice-skating.

But not confident enough to skate on his own, regardless of what Aaron seemed to think, his date easing his fingers from Robert’s vice grip, trying to encourage him to move forward on his own.

“Nope.”

“Yes.”

“Nope.”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “I can see why I was told to look for an obnoxious blonde,” he said. “Obnoxious, and stubborn too.”

“It’s called self-preservation!” Robert argued.

“Chicken.”

“Oh, really, that’s what we’re doing now?”

Aaron made a clucking sound, clearly entirely unbothered about making a holy show of himself on the busy ice-rink. “Chicken,” he repeated. “Robert Sugden is a chicken. Who’d have thought it?”

“I’m not a chicken,” Robert couldn’t stop the competitive side of him from getting riled up.

“Prove it then,” Aaron said, skating backward so he was leaning against the side wall of the ice-rink, arms folded across his chest. He’d long since abandoned his hat, the beanie tucked into the pocket of his coat, messy curls on full, delicious display, coat unzipped to reveal a broad chest that Robert was sure he was going to do a lot of fantasising about.

Taking a second to steady his breathing, Robert tried to put all the titbits of information Aaron had given them over the past hour together, and he inched forward, not entirely stable on his feet as he skated the few metres of distance between him, and Aaron.  

He managed to get most of the way there before he stumbled, Aaron easily catching him as Robert fell forward, unfamiliar hands on Robert’s waist as they crashed backward into the side of the ice-rink, Aaron’s laughter infectious.

“I won’t give up the day job,” Robert joked, Aaron’s hands not moving from their steadying position on Robert’s waist. Except – except they weren’t really steadying anymore, as much as they were wanting, fingertips digging through layers of material.

It was cliché, Robert knew that much – but he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in and pressing his lips to Aaron’s, Sleigh Ride blaring into the background as they kissed for the first time, the noise and general ruckus of the Christmas market surrounding them as they kissed, Aaron’s beard scratchy against Robert’s chin (that was new, Robert thought to himself, as he pinned Aaron to the side of the rink.)

“See?” Aaron said, a little breathless as he spoke. “Ice-skating is fun.”

Robert couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Maybe it is.”

“Do you fancy a drink? Somewhere warm, maybe – there’s a nice little pub down the street from here,” Aaron suggested, still holding tightly to Robert’s waist.

He’d done it once now, so he sort of couldn’t stop himself from doing it again, kissing Aaron long, and slow. “I’d like that.”

 

 

 

 

(Robert still didn’t like Christmas. One nice date wasn’t going to change that, Aaron was a good kisser, but he wasn’t magic. But maybe – maybe ice-skating could (and did) become a tradition, of sorts. And that he didn’t mind at all.)

 


End file.
